Hobby Master Archive

In 1938 the Soviets began work on a heavy tank replacement for the T-35. All but one tank design submitted for consideration were multi-turreted. The single-turret tank was called the KV-1, named after the defense commissar of the time Klimenti Voroshilov. The design was field tested during the winter war with Finland in 1940 and found to be very mobile compared to the other Soviet designs that had been proposed. The production version of the KV-1 was outfitted with a longer barrel 7.62 mm gun versus the short barreled prototype. At first the KV-1 was plagued with clutch and transmission problems but this was overcome when the Soviets realized that this was a great tank otherwise. The KV-1 went through many changes and improvements over the period of the war such as added armor for the KV-1B. When the Germans invaded the USSR the KV-1 factory was packed up and moved further east into the USSR to Cheljabinsk. Even with the move the Soviets were able to produce 933 KV-1s in the last half of 1941. The Germans weren’t long re-marking any serviceable KV-1s they found and using them against the same people that manufactured them. The Soviets claimed the KV-1 was capable of 35 km/h but they used the KV-1s as breakthrough tanks and this speed was seldom ever tested in this role. The KV-1s would do the heavy battling with the Germans and punch holes in their lines that would allow the fast T-34s to race through.